June McDoom is writing her own history

June McDoom is not a folk artist. She sits across from me in the noisy pub garden, a couple of hours before her London headline at The Old Church. “I feel like I’ve been forced to be like, ‘I’m a folk singer,’ which I’m cool to say because I love folk. But anyone who is really knowledgeable about folk is going to be like, no. So I feel weird saying it.” I’ve been listening to her album for the last few days. It’s a thing with many heads, moving in unexpected patterns, delicate and vivid and often both, laced with seams and wings like folded cloth. We are discussing genre as an instrument of power in the music industry. “Everything I read about you online is about genre,” I say, “about you mixing this and that.” She laughs. “It’s so hard because anytime anyone asks me about genre, I just feel like I have to give a weird answer, I just have to force something out. Sometimes people are like, ‘What do you make?’ and I’m just like… ‘I sing and play guitar.’” I wonder if genre is a boxing in, a hat forced upon the head of female, guitar-wielding artists, with a set of instructions written alongside it. Once the hat is on, everyone can look away. June McDoom’s music is not folk, and there...